Re: GNOME's testing strategy for GUIs

[John Stowers <john stowers lists gmail com>]

> 
> 
> * Many tools are available for automated testing, and GNOME needs to
>   annoint one with holy gnome pee so that it will become an acceptable
>   dependency for development.  Whether this is LDTP, Dogtail, Strongwind,
>   or others, a clear decision needs to be made so that people can go
>   forth with creating tests.

Not that anointing something as holy pee always works (remember Tracker
v Beagle), but I think in this case it is worth it.

Personally I would like to use one of these frameworks to automatically
take screenshots of Conduit releases, but so far I'm stuck. I don't have
enough time to compare all the available options, and don't want to
waste time picking one that doesn't get anointed at a later date.

Perhaps this same rationale is the reason [1] that we don't have
 * Some sort of desktop wide automated system for keeping screenshots up
to date in documentation (and taking them in all supported languages)
 * Heaps of GUI regression tests in JHBuild

John

[1] The other reason, of course, is that people don't have infinite free
time to hack on these things